Some questions about portable hard drives
 

1. What happens if a virus infects it? Is it screwed or can you format it?
2. Is there a point when it'll stop working because of age?

Thanks for answering.

all harddrives have points where they will stop working because of age(talking years here)

if you run a program on it that is a virus you are in trouble but the hd itself cannot get "infected" as you say. It can store the executable and files on it can be infected....but you wouldn't know that untill you hooked it up to a pc and ran one of the executable files.


you can format them if you want..

An external hard drive is no different than an internal one--except its external. To that end, a virus wont affect it any differently than it will a normal hard drive, yes you can reformat it, and yes, it will stop working eventually--as will all hard drives.

Are there any signs it'll stop working? So that you can save your stuff to another place before it drops dead.

Yes, but not that you should rely on. You can monitor error counts & various status indicators, but it won't help with theft or if you drop the thing on the way home. Pick a backup strategy & stick with it. One extra internal drive for your home box is cheap and easy insurance.

Never trust a hard drive. If its important, have it in two places. Sometimes drives start throwing errors or making wierd noises before they die, but sometimes they dont.

Yeah, definitely think about it like you do other hardrives...it's the same thing

How long is the average life span? Or is it pretty random.

BTW, thanks for answering.